For Sławomir Mrożek, the period between 1962 and 1969 was eventful and decisive: it was the time of his departure from Communist Poland, of his emigration, first to Italy and then to Paris, the time of his first successes in Western Europe as a playwright – and a time of immense private tragedy, the death of his wife Maria. In this, his journal, Mrożek notes down his thoughts on life and writing, moments of happiness and despair, ideas for plays, reflections on books read and on his difficult position as a writer in exile, having left behind in his Polish homeland not just political restrictions, but his language and readership, too. A journey through Mrożek’s inner cosmos, a continuing construction and deconstruction of the self. Not originally written for public view, this journal has a raw, direct force.